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Virtual learning environments

13 February 2024

The Sustainability Hub supports sustainable education initiatives at UC, with a particular focus on identifying pedagogically sound methods of delivering practical hands-on teaching in more sustainable ways.

HOW TO APPLY

Sustainable alternatives for lectures and seminars are widely understood and used, with a range of tools for synchronous video conferencing and asynchronous collaboration enabling people to avoid unnecessary travel, deliver and access educational experiences that would otherwise be missed, and flip classrooms to make the most of both remote and in-classroom modes.

However, hands-on teaching such as that which occurs in laboratories or during field-trips has tended to be ignored as too difficult to meaningfully achieve in a virtual environment.

At UC, a cross-campus group of academic and technical staff work to identify courses and areas where virtual learning tools or learning units offer sustainability gains together with equivalent or improved learning outcomes. Some of the tools and learning units completed and put into service at UC are listed below. These initiatives have also produced a number of peer-reviewed papers, won a major international MOOC award, and been a finalist in the Australasian Green Gown Awards.

 

These initiatives align with UC's strategic goals and sustainability policy.

  • UC Sustainability Policy Goal 2: Teaching and Learning for Sustainability: explore options for enhancing low carbon methods of teaching, for example remote laboratory access and other on-line delivery modes;
  • UC Strategic Goal of Education — Accessible, Flexible, Future Focused while also aiming for improved learning outcomes, safety, and resilience

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